The former owner of the Corner Bar & Grille in Altoona, Brian Stroh, may have to return to prison on drug-related charges after the Pennsylvania Superior Court vacated a sentence issued last November by a Blair County judge placing him on home detention.

“The court’s Nov. 9, 2016, order is a nullity,” according to an opinion released Aug. 29 by a panel that included judges Mary Jane Bowes, Anne E. Lazarus and Paula Francisco Ott.

Stroh, 42, who now operates a pizza shop in Altoona, was originally sentenced by Judge Timothy M. Sullivan for possession of cocaine with intent to deliver and the illegal use of a communication device to 2.5 years minus one day to five years minus two days.

He was sentenced to the county prison rather than a state correctional facility as part of a plea agreement presented to the judge by Senior Deputy Attorney General Dave Gorman and Stroh’s defense counsel, Steven P. Passarello.

After Stroh served 15.5 months in the prison, Passarello filed a petition with Sullivan asking him to alter the sentence so that Stroh would be able to serve the last few months of his prison term while living at home.

He would be monitored on home detention through the use of an electronic device that would ensure his only trips outside the home were to his place of employment.

Passarello explained Stroh had been a model prisoner, received no demerits in prison, had followed prison rules and passed all his drug tests.

Gorman objected, stating Stroh, who has been swept up in an investigation of a cocaine ring operating between Baltimore and Altoona, received a relatively light sentence.

His Corner Bar had been used by a gang led by Damion “Benny” Floyd of Baltimore to process, package and distribute both powdered and crack cocaine.

Members of the Floyd organization, arrested on Nov. 3, 2011, as part of Operation Last Call, received substantially higher sentences, ranging from seven to 46 years.

Stroh’s “light” sentence was in recognition for his cooperation in the investigation and his lesser role with the organization.

Despite prosecution arguments, Sullivan placed Stroh on home detention, and within days, Gorman filed an appeal with the Superior Court.

The appeals court rejected the November sentence because, under law, a judge has only 30 days after imposition of a sentence to alter or modify it.

The only exception to the 30-day period is to correct a technical or clerical error, which, the court stated, did not apply in the Stroh case.

Sullivan, according to the opinion, altered Stroh’s sentence more than a year and three months after his original sentence.

The plea agreement called for a term of incarceration for Stroh, and according to the opinion written by Lazarus, “Our Supreme Court (in 2005) held that time spent subject to electronic monitoring at home is not time spent ‘in custody.'”

“Incarceration in an institutional setting is different in kind, not in mere degree, from ‘confinement’ to the comforts of one’s home,” according to the Supreme Court precedent.

“We are extremely disappointed in the order, the way it came down,” Passarello said recently.

He said he will file an appeal because the Superior Court did not address an exception to the rule outlined in the 2005 precedent.

That exception is based on “equity” or fairness, Passarello explained.

The example the Supreme Court used to illustrate equity was a case involving a DUI defendant who was released by prison officials to home confinement without the knowledge of the sentencing judge.

That person, it was stated, received credit for his home detention because his release was not his fault.

Passarello pointed out Stroh was released to home confinement under similar circumstances (by a judge) and he even paid $5,100 upfront toward home monitoring fees.

The Superior Court pointed out in the Stroh case there was a “binding agreement” that he would have served 2.5 years behind bars and that sentence, it reasoned, “is binding on the court.”

In a footnote, the Superior Court stated, “We recognize that Stroh is the least culpable party under the limited facts of this case where he has personally paid $5,100 in electronic monitoring fees and now will presumably lose that money due to the trial court’s lack of jurisdiction to grant him the right to be placed on electronic monitoring.”

Passarello was asked if the opinion means Stroh will have to also return to prison for several months.

He said he believes that could be the end result of the Superior Court decision.